


Thicker Than Water

by illumynare



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Carwash siblings AU, Gen, hurt with implied comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 02:52:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9103279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illumynare/pseuds/illumynare
Summary: There are a hundred words for "sister." Wash has forgotten all of them, and Epsilon remembers too many.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a_taller_tale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_taller_tale/gifts).



> I never had any particular attachment to the "Carolina and Wash are siblings" idea...until a_taller_tale dropped a headcanon that _slayed_ me, and then this fic happened.

**Agent Washington**

**Sis**

Wheedling always used to work on her.

"C'mon, Sis, pleeease?" he begs. The kitten squirms in his arms, trying to escape, but its purr is a steady vibration against his ribs.

"No," she says. "We can't keep it, David. You know what Dad would say."

"He wouldn't notice," David mutters, looking at the locked door of their father's study.

He hasn't noticed _anything_ , since they got the news about Mom.

"I'll call the shelter," she says, her voice brisk and grown-up, the same way she says _here's your dinner_ when she shoves another plate of baked beans and sliced hot dogs in front of him. David knows it's hopeless, and he wants to be grown-up, wants to be the little brother she'd be proud of, but he can't stop the tears from stinging at his eyes.

 

**Boss**

The visor of her helmet gleams golden. "You can't slip up, David," she warns him. "Anyone here finds out you're my brother, and you're out."

"You got it, boss," he says, and grins at her through his HUD. "And call me Wash."

It's not hard. That's the one thing she doesn't get. Burying the person he used to be, that's not hard at _all._

David's the screw-up younger brother who cried when he didn't get a cat, who nearly blinded Cecil Kyle, who watched his older sister walk away into the ranks of the UNSC and leave him alone. Who tried to follow her and ended up facing a court-martial.

Wash is the rookie agent who made it onto the leaderboard inside of a month. Wash is the one who _deserves_ to be on Agent Carolina's team, who gets to back her up on missions and take her orders the same as anyone. Who gets teased by York and protected by Maine and actually _belongs._

He's never happier than when he calls her "boss."

 

**[static]**

Epsilon happens.

Afterward—when he's recovered enough to realize there _is_ an afterward—he sits in his bed. Listens to the doctors and nurses walking back and forth. Feels his single, separate heartbeat. Flexes his fingers one by one.

There are too many memories jammed into his head now, and they aren't all his. That's not the problem. Wash remembers being Leonard Church, but he _knows_ that isn't true.

The problem is that Epsilon didn't just dump data and leave; he read, copied, overwrote. And now Wash doesn't have a single memory left that isn't altered. When he tries to remember his own childhood, his fucked-up mind can't help twisting it into memories of being Leonard Church's son. Of a red-haired older sister heating up a can of baked beans, and the bugles at his mother's funeral, and it's not real, it's _not._  

His name was never David Church.

(If Carolina was his sister, she never would have left him here.)

 

**[REDACTED]**

He knows he has a sister.

Sisters?

It's too vague, and his memories are too jumbled. When he tries to remember names, the static makes his mind shudder and bleed.

He does try once to get the answer out of Project Freelancer's archives. But he doesn't have the clearance to access his own unredacted records, and he doesn't dare set off any alarms.

It doesn't matter anyway.

He's not going to survive this.

 

**Carolina**

When she first comes back, it hurts to look at her. He hears the static again—for the first time in years—fake memories that he thought he'd forgotten, stopped caring about.

It's easiest to be the rookie again. To say, "Yes, boss," ~~like when he had to pretend he wasn't her brother~~. But she's Carolina and she won't stop pushing, and he's—

—something—

— _new_ , maybe—

It hurts when he points the gun at her. Leaves him shaky, with his ears ringing, and Tucker keeps asking, "Uh, dude? Are you okay?" because he's been staring at the walls for like ten minutes. But it's a relief because it's over, he knows he's not— Well, he doesn't want to even think the word, but he's _not_.

Because if he had been, he wouldn't have left her there.

Then they go back for her. And there's a weird feeling when he takes her hand and helps her back up, like pieces slotting into place, but there isn't a lot of time to think about it because killer robots.

Chorus happens. Carolina leaves him (again). Wash doesn't plan to survive (again).

It's actually okay. When she comes back, Wash isn't angry the way Tucker is. When he sees Carolina, all he feels is the uncomplicated _thankgodthankgodyou'reokay_ that he wasn't able to feel the first time she came back. They work to save Chorus together, and it is the best thing ever. Of all time.

But Carolina . . . doesn't seem to be okay.

She's not like she was before they found the Director, driven and haunted and on the edge of snapping. But there's this way she keeps looking at Wash, when they're not talking and he's not quite looking at her.

One evening—after he's spent a long, _long_ day trying to train the new lieutenants—she sits down next to him.

"Do you ever think about . . . before?" she asks softly.

"Before?" Wash echoes, his heartbeat picking up.

"Before Freelancer," says Carolina.

Static screams in his ears. "No," he says, and the next moment he's on his feet. "It's over."

He can't understand why Carolina's shoulders slump as he leaves. He's just the rookie, right? He's never been more than that, and he was a _good_ rookie.

He realizes his hands are shaking.

That night, Epsilon wakes him up out of a dead sleep. "Hey, _asshole._ What do you think you're doing?"

"Seriously?" says Wash, glaring up at him. "Sleeping."

 _No thanks to you,_ he doesn't add.

Epsilon waves his arms until they blur like a hummingbird's wings. "Are you fuckin' kidding me? You said _THAT_ to her?"

"Said what?"

"Oh, hey, Carolina, I think my past is just 'over,' you know, because I'm  _cool_  like that."

"Epsilon . . ." Wash would yell at him, but honestly, he's too tired. "I don't really remember much before Freelancer, okay? It doesn't matter. Leave me alone."

"Uh . . . _oh,"_ says Epsilon, and winks out of sight.

Wash waits, but Epsilon doesn't come back. So he rolls over, and goes back to sleep.

He dreams of red hair and baked beans.

* * *

 

**Epsilon**

**Agent Carolina**

_I'm sorry to tell you that Agent Carolina is dead._

shit shit fuck those calculations weren't wrong THEY WEREN'T WRONG how did I miss it WHAT DID I MISS

_It was not your fault. She misjudged the jump back into the Pelican._

no no wait she's better than that it was a safe distance I took headwinds into account she can't have missed it SHE'S BETTER THAN THAT

_Emergency thrusters failed. She fell approximately 200 meters. Death was instantaneous._

but I did maintenance on the suits last week but there was the training mission two days ago could it have affected but they say there's a mole but whatif what elsif (unacceptable||unavoidable) { don't say goodbye } =ERROR; ERROR; ERROR

_Alpha. Please remain calm._

_Can you tell me what you're feeling?_

 

**[static]**

too much, it's too much, _AlisonAlisonAlison_ is the scream ripping apart his head but there's a counterpoint keening of _CarolinaBabygirlLinaSis_ , red hair and blond hair and _don't say goodbye, I hate goodbyes,_ and every memory is echoed back two-faced, wifemofthersisterdaughter, helpmeprotectme I c o u l d n ' t s a v e y o u

 

**Carolina**

"What are you doing _alive_ , Carolina?" he demands, and—okay, at the time, he's purely, 100% angry at her. And Washington. And Caboose. And everyone, because fuck them all, he was about to die at peace with himself and Tex, and now he has to cope with a team of idiots again.

But later, as they hunt down the Director, he thinks it again: _What are you doing_ alive _, Carolina?_ And this time, the thought is filled with wonder. Because Epsilon saw her death. He calculated her death. Well, technically, Alpha did, but whatever. Epsilon is the one dealing with the massive psychological trauma.

And Carolina's the one who is, against all odds and in defiance of the Director's machinations—despite all the times that Epsilon fucked up and remembers the Alpha fucking up— _alive._

There aren't words in 18 pan-galactic dictionaries (Epsilon knows; he has them all downloaded, and he checked) for how relieved he is that she survived.

Even it was without him.

 

**Sis**

He never says it to her face. 

It's something he'll regret in those final, endlessly dilating milliseconds as he records his goodbyes, as Delta checks the final calculations, and Theta asks if it will hurt, and Omega rumbles _when do we start?_

As Epsilon shuts down subroutines and records logs—he's wiping his memories but the new fragments will need a sitrep—he desperately _regrets_ that he never called Carolina "Sis" where she could hear it.

He had his reasons. Epsilon is aware that he's kind of a creepy stalker sometimes. He did learn his lesson from the memory unit eventually, thank you very much. He _knows_ it's pretty fucked to think of Carolina as his sister, just because they were both created and fractured by Leonard Church. Just because Wash screamed for her, _Sis come help me Sis please,_ while Epsilon was tearing his mind apart and absorbing every part of it.

God, it makes him feel sick to even _think_ that.

But Epsilon is more than what the Director made him. (Just like Carolina is, just like Wash). So he wishes that he'd called her "Sis." Just once, maybe, for kicks. He wishes that he'd said, _You know, we make a pretty good team and also I kindasortathinkofyouasmysisterOHGOD._

. . . the point is, if he'd told her, _maybe_ he would have also told her. That thing. About Wash. That he found out out a few weeks ago. And didn't tell anyone, 'cause honestly he doesn't like dealing with personal issues.

Also, okay, he was kinda jealous.

But he's losing Carolina anyway now. And maybe that's why goodbyes aren't so bad. Because they give you a chance to set things right before you go.

"Start recording, D."

"Recording."

"Hey, Sis. Uh. Carolina. I gotta tell you . . . fuck it, I'm not talking about feelings, even if I'm about to die. The point is, you're going to be fine, and I _know_ you understand why I have to do this, but . . . you gotta talk to Wash. About what he remembers. Because I think he's gonna need your help."

He is Epsilon and he is memory and maybe _this_ is why he exists, why it was worth it (all worth it) for him to live and fuck up and suffer Caboose: so that he can remember _now_ and pass it on.

"Carolina. _Sis_. He doesn't hate you. He just . . . doesn't remember you yet."


End file.
